Whatever Happened to Civil Liberties?

Under Obama, Democrats have embraced the national security state.

During a scene in the 2006 Oscar-winning movie “The Departed,” Martin Sheen’s cop character points at government agents who are working with police during a sting operation and remarks: “All cell phone signals are under surveillance, due to the courtesy of our federal friends over there.” Alec Baldwin’s cop character then slaps the back of a fellow officer in glee, exclaiming: “Patriot Act, Patriot Act! I love it, I love it, I love it!”

I considered this scene to be a Hollywood liberal dig at then-President Bush, whose Patriot Act legislation was considered an assault on civil liberties by the left. At the time, liberals’ greatest beef with Bush was unquestionably on the issues of foreign policy and civil liberties — with the warrantless wiretapping and government eavesdropping permitted by the Patriot Act at the top of the list.

But that was then.

Under a Democratic administration, the left antiwar movement has become a distant memory, and liberal support for civil liberties has evaporated now that Obama wields the power to spy on citizens. Which he does — far more than Bush.

The American Civil Liberties Union reported last week under the headline “New Justice Department Documents Show Huge Increase in Warrantless Electronic Surveillance:”

Justice Department documents released … by the ACLU reveal that federal law enforcement agencies are increasingly monitoring Americans’ electronic communications, and doing so without warrants, sufficient oversight, or meaningful accountability.

The ACLU reported that between 2009 and 2011 the number of people subjected to telephone wiretapping had doubled or tripled depending on the category. The government conducted more telephone surveillance in those two years than it had in the previous decade. As far as snooping through your email, the ACLU reported that the number of authorizations the Justice Department received to use certain devices to conduct Internet surveillance increased 361% between 2009 and 2011. The ACLU continued:

Earlier this year, the New York Times reported that cellphone carriers received 1.3 million demands for subscriber information in 2011 alone. And an ACLU public records project revealed that police departments around the country large and small engage in cell phone location tracking.

Yeah, so remember that scene in “The Departed” where the feds help the police eavesdrop on private cell phone conversations? That’s really happening, and not just to gangster movie characters played by Jack Nicholson. It’s happening to American citizens, everyday, at an alarming — and increasing — rate as the Justice Department numbers obtained by the ACLU indicate.

But what are the hard numbers, exactly? That’s secret too. We’re not allowed to know. These discussions take place in “classified briefings,” but as Fox News’ Judge Andrew Napolitano recently explained: “Gazillions. That’s the number of times the federal government has spied on Americans since 9/11 through the use of drones, legal search warrants, illegal search warrants, federal agent-written search warrants and just plain government spying.”

The liberal narrative throughout the 2000s of an executive branch assuming dictatorial powers to circumvent the Constitution was an accurate one. After 9/11, President Bush used that tragedy to set an unconstitutional precedent from which this country has yet to recover.

But President Obama has not only maintained that precedent, he has greatly expanded it. On the civil liberties-related issues that infuriated the Left under Bush, Obama has done far more damage. If Bush established indefinite detention for enemy combatants with the Patriot Act, Obama not only retained this, but also gave us indefinite detention for American citizens with the National Defense Authorization Act. Also, under Obama, the president can even execute an American citizen suspected of terrorist activity without arrest or trial. The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf has it right:

Obama established one of the most reckless precedents imaginable: that any president can secretly order and oversee the extrajudicial killing of American citizens. Obama’s kill list transgresses against the Constitution as egregiously as anything George W. Bush ever did. It is as radical an invocation of executive power as anything Dick Cheney championed.

Then, of course, there is the drastic increase in government spying under Obama.

When Barack Obama ran for president he promised to “revisit” the Patriot Act, implement civil liberties protections, and restore judicial oversight. He lied. When Obama became president, he not only reauthorized the Patriot Act, but expanded the anti-constitutional powers of the executive branch.

Where are the angry “criminal” accusations we heard from the left when a Republican was in office? There are none. Liberals are mute. Partisan silence. Assaulting the Constitution is simply not a crime when their president does it.

Jack Hunter is the co-author of The Tea Party Goes to Washington bySen. Rand Paul and serves as New Media Director for Senator Paul. The viewspresented in this essay are the author’s own and are independent of anycampaign or other organization.

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25 Responses to Whatever Happened to Civil Liberties?

Jack, be careful, because this whole mess is a lot less partisan than you allude to. Afterall, Obama alone didn’t give us NDAA, but the Republican House and Democratic Senate had to pass the law first. All of this could be stopped if enough members of Congress wanted it to stop. The next 4 years will only be worse regardless who wins in November.

what ever happened to civil liberties? never had them. the phrase borders on oxymoronic. there is no true liberty if the state controls how/when liberty is furthered, and how/when it is restricted. the Bill of Rights is a pacifier and nothing more.

I agree with Bob, your tone is bitingly partisan. It would have been harder for the massive expansion of a surveillance state to take place had the pieces not been earlier put in place. That said, as a person who previously voted for Obama, he will not be getting my vote this time precisely for his expansion of executive power and increasing the opacity of our government. There are liberal critics out there if you look; parties are not monolithic. Try this http://boingboing.net/2012/09/18/obama-2012-campaign-erases-all.html

This is why it is so important that we demand that Gary Johnson be in the presidential debates. Democrats AND Republicans are speeding us on our way to dictatorship for no reason other than to protect their own hides.

Let’s face it, both Republicans and Democrats have failed the American people when it comes to protecting freedom. Clinton created the First Amendment Zone (to keep anti-abortionists far enough away from abortion clinics), and this precedent has been thoroughly abused since. The Patriot Act is like many Bush-era laws…worded with Orwell in mind (think Clean Air Act), and the redefinition of torture under Bush is a travesty. After all, if an action was excuse to execute Japanese soldiers after WW2, I see no reason why the same action is suddenly acceptable (Waterboarding is the example here). Obama has only weakened freedom further, allowing American citizens to be snatched, sent to willing nations for torture, and detained indefinately. The Constitution is in shambles, and the state of the USA speaks for itself. The country is heading down a dark road, and both Republicans AND Democrats are to blame. Neither takes seriously enough their vow to protect the Constitution. Don’t even get me started on the treasonous Supreme Court, which has opened the way for foreign governments to directly intervene in American politics under the guise of “freedom of speech”. Money is not speech, it is money. Corporations are not people, they are legal contracts. The Supreme Court is not just, they are as corrupt as the worst in this world.

I think the partisanship is because the Democrats are supposed to be against these violations, at least as of 4 years ago. The mainstream GOP would put a surveillance network in every bedroom without batting an eye if done in the name of “defense.” But the Democrats claimed they opposed that garbage. It is worth pointing out that they’re letting us down on one of the few social policy areas they got right in the last few decades.

I always laugh when I hear some of my firends and others call Obama a liberal or socialist. In a lot of respects, I wish that were actually true. No drones in our air space, no private prisons making money by lobbying for immigration legislation that drives “customers” into their facilities, no more War on Drugs for the same reason(and how much of the Patriot Act is being used to facilitate that I wonder?), no continued drone wars indiscriminately killing civilians and creating a new generation of people that hate the US, etc. Call Obama what you will, but in regards to civil liberties, he is no liberal.

First of all, let’s remember than anything which is campaign preparation is also by definition, democratic. If Obama kept certain Bush policies, and even expanded them, in preparation for a “weak on defense” attack, that was not to please a minority.

I think the odd cries from the right, that the left should have followed their fringe, punt on majority will or rule.

If you want to Obama, or any future President, to be strong on Civil Liberties you first have to make that a political necessity.

@seangillhooley – forget about Japanese soldiers; what about JAPANESE AMERICANS who were rounded up and placed in interment camps? they were law-abilding, tax-paying citizens. as I said; we The People never really enjoyed civil liberties beyond the table scraps offered/denied by plutocrats and oligarchs who run DC.

There is but one remedy: A law that makes lying to “the people” by any elected official a felony. Just like it is a felony for us citizens to lie to our elected officials. Since we are supposed to be the sovereign here, there should be no objections from any candidate. Just have all candidates sign the pledge to vote for just such a law. Anybody who refuses – we know that whatever he promises once elected, is a lie.

Glenn Greenwald, Ray McGovern, Danny Schecter, and many other “liberal” voices write repeatedly about the civil rights abuses by President Obama. Rachel Maddow wrote a book about the Drift into the secuity state and war making that seems to be inherent in our system. I could go on, but the idea that liberals are not incensed by civil rights and other abuses by Obama is not exactly true.

In fact, there were many conservative voices against the abuses of the war on terror during the Bush years. If anything, civil liberties and the rule of law should be and are at least one area where both philosophies should find agreement. And often do.

Jack, you used to be so insightful. I’m afraid you’ve become rather bitter and partisan since you started working for Mr. Paul. There are plenty of us on the left who are horrifed by Mr. Obama and say it every chance we get. I was a vocal critic of Bush and continue to be of Obama. I didn’t vote for either and won’t vote for a mainstream presidential candidate any time soon (although I would have voted for Ron Paul (however, I never would for his son unless he learns a lot more of the wisdom of his father)).

Not to dismiss the concerns expressed here, but the party out of power often is more concerned about civil liberties than the party in power.

Back during the Clinton administration, right-wingers ’round the country liked to traipse around in tricorn hats and holding various weaponry, posing as modern-day Paul Reveres. They called themselves “militias” and belched forth volumes about liberty and such–much of it self-serving nonsense about excessive taxation.

Dubya gets elected? The torches and pitchforks get put away, and instead 99% of the political right engages in a nonstop love-fest for the commander in chief; the notion that dissent is disloyal was quite popular in conservative circles, even as Bush fiddled while Rome burned and New Orleans drowned.

Obama comes to power? Out come the tricorn hats and the colonial garb, as though the Bush Administration never happened. Only this time, the term “tea party” was used.

Likewise, of course, for many on the left–who are, and have been, more critical of Reagan and both Bushes for various foreign and domestic misadventures than they have been of Obama. Obama does have his critics on the left, of course–some of them vociferous–but conduct that was outrageous when one party is in office becomes merely annoying when the other comes to power.

You will be able to know who wins in November simply by paying attention to whose partisans squeal louder about liberty.

The national security issue and everything done in its name are the ultimate monsters gobbling up our civil rights. And it is the ultimate political catch 22. It reminds me of the loss of childhood in our society, where because of isolated incidents committed by a few monsters among millions of our citizens, our children no longer have the freedom to enjoy their childhood as I did. The final argument by parents taking away our childrens freedom to explore the world as my generation could, is; how could you live with yourself and how could you face your friends if you let your children out to interact with the outside 3 dimensional world and they fell victim to a predator? The same dilemma faces our broken political system. How could one party or the other face the consequences of dismantling the massive institutions put into place in the name of national security, and then have an incident that, the other party will claim, would never have happened except for the ill advised dismantling of the institutions of national security that now have been given unaccountable powers beyond any powers our elected officials have? If you build it, how do you justify continued investment in it unless you use it. Neocons for the daily double Alex. Bet everything. Create destruction ad infinitum. After all, who are the beneficiaries of the security state?

I agree with what other commenters have expressed. This would be a more convincing and pointed article if the thrust of it was our increasingly intrusive government and not liberal hypocracy.

Hunter is also wrong when he accuses the left of giving Obama a pass. I frequently see criticism of his foreign and civil rights policies from left-leansing sources such as Juan Cole and Americablog, to name just two. Tom Dispatch regularly writes about war and our increasingly militarized police force.

I’m not sure ‘hypocrisy’ is the issue. Disappointment, maybe. We had gotten used to the Democrats being marginally saner in foreign policy and on civil liberties. Now they turn out, as a party, to be utterly worthless. So we have two worthless gangs of political entrepreneurs (as Friedrich Engels pointed out long ago) and it is hardly ‘partisan’ to hate them more or less equally according to their deserts.

I think all this deficit spending and civil liberties destruction portends one of three things : 1. the breakup of this country, 2. a movement toward secession, 3. world government….lol. It could go either way but this country as it presently exists is not long for the world.

“The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.” — James Madison, Father of the Constitution, 4th President of the United States

I think both parties should consider this wise counsel.

And consider the wise counsel of George Washington regarding political parties:

“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.”

As I concluded reading your article I wanted to comment, but quickly realized a number of individuals already hit the nail on the head with their comments much more eloquently than I could, so I’ll keep it short.

You can play the conservative vs. liberal blame game all you want, but it’s quite divisive in a time when we need to work together for serious change. (if not the politicians, at the very least we the people) The us vs. them mentality is exactly the kind of distraction TPTB rely upon. The truth is, our liberties are being snatched regardless of the reigning puppets party affiliation.